Circuit breakers are utilized to break an electrical circuit between a source of electricity and an electrical load in response to an over-current condition.
Circuit breakers typically are contained in a housing and include a stationary contact coupled to the electrical load. Circuit breakers typically further include a breaker assembly including a blade carrying a movable contact coupled to the electrical source and a spring for biasing the movable contact away from the stationary contact. The breaker assembly further includes a releasable latch mechanism which opposes the spring bias and maintains the movable contact in a contacting relationship with the stationary contact, permitting current to flow between the electrical source and the electrical load.
The latch mechanism includes a trip lever which, when actuated, releases the latch mechanism, permitting the spring bias to move the movable contact away from the stationary contact, thereby preventing current flow between the electrical source and the electrical load.
Prior breaker assemblies often were not self contained and required points of attachment with the housing. This made preassembly of the breaker assembly difficult because the breaker assembly would come apart unless held together by the housing.
Actual assembly of the breaker assembly has been difficult to automate because many assembly steps had to be performed along all three orthogonal axes. Automated assembly of the circuit breaker itself has also been difficult because of the requirement of attaching elements of the breaker assembly to the housing.
In addition, the cross-sectional area of the blade was a current capacity limiting element. In order to increase the current carrying capability of the circuit breaker, one would attempt to increase the cross sectional area of the blade.
Many prior blades were of a springboard design with opposing, upwardly directed side members. With the springboard design, increasing the cross sectional area was difficult because to do so would change the entire geometry of the blade.
The present invention is provided to solve these and other problems.